Hush Arbors

Ever since Landscape of Bone Keith Wood has snuck his way alongside James Jackson Toth and Matthew Valentine as one of our favorite American guitar slingers around here. Initially shrouded in such a wash of reverb that words melted together in pools of gauzy ambience, Wood as with his compatriot Toth, has wrestled his psych-folk into a bare Americana that feels more in touch with the bare dirt realities of the heartland than modern country could ever hope to capture. That he has made his most heartfelt and honest album with J. Mascis at the controls seems a case of strange bedfellows, but perhaps its more natural than it would seem. The two seem to compliment each other nicely, with Mascis adding a bit of hard grit to Wood's newer sense of melancholy. He even lends guitar to the album, taking Hush Arbors further into the garage territory that I would have ever thought possible. Certainly Yankee Reality is the best Hush Arbors album to date and in a year of relatively high water marks in music, its another triumph for all things good in '09.

Download:
[MP3] Hush Arbors - Coming Home
[MP3] Hush Arbors - Day Before

Support the artist. Buy it: HERE